DOD grapples with cyberattack coordination

The Defense Department wants to normalize its cyberwarfare operations, but first must come to grips with how to distinguish between cyberwarfare and other overlapping efforts such as directed energy and electronic attacks, intelligence gathering and information operations, reports Aviation Week.

Which part of the department actually commands and controls the technology operationally and strategically remains an open question. The uncertainty was illustrated by the formation of Air Force Cyber Command, followed by its months-long pause in bureaucratic limbo and, finally, its re-designation as a numbered air force under U.S. Strategic Command.

The institutional tangle was compounded because the services have still not produced a unified plan for electronic warfare and attack. The organizations and lines of responsibility are still being hammered out, Air Force officials said. The challenge is formidable as cyber-operations broach everything from the tactical to the operational to the strategic.